Customer service and customer experience blog for call center professionals
It’s essential that your organization understands the 10 key trends currently shaping the state of customer service. Some may be familiar trends that you’ve already embraced, while others may be new. Either way, a keen eye must be kept on this important industry that continues to evolve.
Let’s take a look at 10 growing customer service trends for 2015. Continue reading
It’s been said that you never get a second chance to make a first impression, something that’s eternally true in the call center. The challenge is how to give every caller the attention they deserve, while avoiding the obvious pitfalls that turn them off.
Here are 5 rookie mistakes you might be making on support calls, and what you can do about them: Continue reading
Over the last decade, an extraordinary transformation has taken place in an industry which, for decades prior, had seen little change. In the early 2000’s, running a call center through a cloud service was dismissed as impractical. A few years later, it was viewed as “just for the smallest call centers”. But by 2008 many naysayers had eaten their words and the migration was in full swing. Between 2008 and 2012, the cloud market grew by some 224%. By the end of 2013, more than 62% of organizations were using some type of cloud-based contact center solution as part of their operation. (Both data points from DMG.)
The cloud-based contact center market is expected to continue to grow from $4.2 billion last year to $11 billion in 2019. That growth is being fueled by several waves of innovation: a new crop of “cloud first” offerings, and new partnerships between carriers and vendors. Continue reading
Did you know that 83% of online customers require some degree of customer support to complete a purchase? This has encouraged companies to utilize web self-service to improve their customer service offerings (it also saves on operating costs).
Web self-service gives customers (and employees) the opportunity to access information instantaneously, without having to contact a live agent. This means that support is accessible and readily available at all times, and information can be attained immediately without the hassle of waiting on hold or for an email response. In fact, 60% of consumers use web self-service to find answers to their questions.
Here are a few reasons why web self-service strongly benefits call centers. Continue reading
It’s hard to imagine a happier bunch than call center employees. After all, most companies cram them in to tight cubicles, pay them peanuts and track their progress every nanosecond. What’s not to love? (For companies, low employee morale, high staff turnover and a poorly-motivated workforce is the un-lovable consequence.)
While not every call center fits the description above, many do. For that matter, so do businesses of all kinds: According to Gallup, 70% of U.S. employees are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged”, a symptom of workplaces that don’t effectively captivate employees (costing U.S. companies an estimated $450 billion to $550 billion annually).
Rather than accepting the status quo, companies should expect more from their call centers. But doing so also means changing the way the call center is perceived throughout the entire organization. So here are 3 strategies to help you improve agent engagement and retention. Continue reading
We had a great webinar last week on top trends in the contact center industry. (Here’s the on-demand version.) The “trends” theme always brings out a large and lively audience, and this time was no different.
One of the topics we covered was the growing challenge of the increasingly complex customer journey that has become typical for many companies. Being able to deliver consistent and effective service in a multi-channel / omni-channel environment is a tough challenge. That, along with rising consumer expectations for rapid and hassle-free customer service, has made it critical for companies to focus on this challenge.
Because we received a ton of questions on that topic, I will expand on it a bit here by sharing some images, some of which were in the webinar, and some that didn’t make the cut. Continue reading
Excellence in customer service can never be stressed enough. A company with outstanding service can increase customer retention by as much as 80%, and boost profit by 60% .
Customer service, however, is not an exact science. Rather, it’s a combination of quick thinking, hard facts and data, and, most of all, empathy that seeks to understand and care for customers.
These five stories provide you with the best examples of how to provide your customers with an amazing customer service experience, even if you’re faced with numerous hurdles. Continue reading
If there’s one thing most of us hate, it’s waiting on hold.
After all, who would consciously choose to waste their time with a phone receiver stuck to one ear, all the while listening to someone repeat the soothing phrase, “… your call is important to us …”? (The answer, of course, is no one.)
That doesn’t mean that consumers have to just take it. A growing number of frustrated callers have taken to social media to vent their frustration at the very companies who have placed them in telephone limbo. So many, in fact, that we decided to build a website to keep track and publish complaints from all of the Twitter users suck on hold: onholdwith.com.
Over the past year, there has been growing attention paid to the role SMS might play as part of the contact center mix. One reason for this is there are now several cloud services that provide easy platforms on which to develop SMS-driven interactions, e.g. Twilio, Tropo and Plivo. Another reason is a change in attitudes on the part of the carriers, who are now willing to allow inbound SMS to any toll-free number. (In the past, carriers strongly preferred that “commercial” use of SMS went through “short-codes”, which required large monthly fees.) In response to this, a number of companies have emerged, or pivoted, to take advantage of the SMS-for-customer-service opportunity, e.g. TextGen, OneReach and MMS.
All of this answers the “how”, the bigger question is “why”. Yes now it’s easier to build SMS into the customer service workflow, but what advantages does it give us? Don’t we have a big enough challenge juggling all the channels we already have? Continue reading
In light of today’s webinar on the top 4 contact center trends for 2015, I wanted to highlight 10 of the most important call center statistics for this year.
I hope you can put them to good use, and better yet, can join us on today’s informative webinar! Continue reading
